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Updates Of the Day 1.BOS of ICAI is organising Four Weeks Residential Programme on Professional Skills Development at CoE, Hyderabad fee Rs. 40,000/- date 26th November, 2015 to 23rd December, 2015 for students and newly qualified CAs. 2.ICAI Election 2015: The Members who are unable to physically vote, may apply for vote by post - Last Date 1st October, 2015. Visit www.icai.org 3.ICAI has issued detailed guidelines on audit of internal financial controls over financial reporting as required under the new Companies law. 4.SEBI issued Revised Disclosure Formats under SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations 2015. 5.MCA has decided to relax the additional fees payable on forms AOC-4, AOC-4 XBRL and MGT-7 up to 31/10/2015. 6.Gold deposits over 500gm, not explained by known source of income, will attract income tax under the gold monetization scheme. 7.CIT cannot revoke section 263 when assessing officer adopts one view out of two possible views : Bombay High court: Vijay ...

Newly coded listing regulations make disclosure of acquisition by a listed company mandatory The terms on which companies get listed on Indian stock exchanges just got codified into regulations. The Securities and Exchange Board of India ( Sebi) has notified the Securities and Exchange Board of India ( Listing obligations and disclosure requirements) Regulations, 2015, ( Listing Regulations). They will take effect on December 1, 2015. For far too long, the terms of listing have been governed by an unhelpful legal construct —the listing agreement, an agreement between the stock exchange and the listed company. Typically, an agreement is “private law” and governs only the parties to the agreement. However, the listing agreement has been wrongly treated like an instrument of “ public law” that would bind the world at large. One did not even need to sign it — it was modified at will by an agency that was not even a party to the agreement, viz Sebi. Fortuitously, this legally infi...

In welcome news for taxpayers, the income-tax department has decided to launch a new system of issuing email notices to which an assessee can respond electronically, obviating the need for a physical interface with the taxman, which often led to complaints about harassment. Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 21st Sept. 201

Lack of enthusiasm on the part of banks may prompt govt to push for mergers as it looks to create stronger and specialized public sector lenders The consolidation of state-run banks is very much on the government's mind even though ministers have said it would be up to the public sector institutions to come up with merger proposals. The finance ministry has sought the Reserve Bank of India's views on the matter, suggesting that lack of enthusiasm on the part of banks may prompt the government to push for mergers as it looks to create stronger and specialized public sector lenders. “The idea is to ascertain the benefits of merger within PSBs (public sector banks) in the current scenario,“ a senior government official said. “A perspective from the RBI will help chalk out the strategy and road map for PSBs going forward.“ The query is a broad one and doesn't refer to any specific cases, the official said. An RBI spokesperson said it had nothing more to add to the dis...

FM says govt committed to GST rollout, reforms and containing fiscal deficit Pitching for more foreign investments, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Sunday India would give better returns than many other countries. He also assured the government was working to expeditiously resolve tax disputes involving three overseas companies. Jaitley, who was in Hong Kong to meet foreign investors and fund houses, emphasised that the government wanted to resolve expeditiously the entire instability on taxation matters, as “ tax uncertainty does not help the investment environment”. Noting that the government was putting special focus on improving ease of doing business, the finance minister said foreign investments could give great additional resources and the country’s infrastructure sector needed huge investments. “ India will give better returns than many other countries.” On the second leg of his visit to Singapore and Hong Kong, he said the government was keen on early resolution ...

Newly coded listing regulations make disclosure of acquisition by a listed company mandatory The terms on which companies get listed on Indian stock exchanges just got codified into regulations. The Securities and Exchange Board of India ( Sebi) has notified the Securities and Exchange Board of India ( Listing obligations and disclosure requirements) Regulations, 2015, ( Listing Regulations). They will take effect on December 1, 2015. For far too long, the terms of listing have been governed by an unhelpful legal construct —the listing agreement, an agreement between the stock exchange and the listed company. Typically, an agreement is “private law” and governs only the parties to the agreement. However, the listing agreement has been wrongly treated like an instrument of “ public law” that would bind the world at large. One did not even need to sign it — it was modified at will by an agency that was not even a party to the agreement, viz Sebi. Fortuitously, this legally infi...

As companies gear up for GST, a great business opportunity for tax experts and consultants is waiting to be tapped At the beginning of his address at a conference on the goods and services tax ( GST), held in the capital last week, a senior official from the Central Board of Excise and Customs ( CBEC) told the audience of 100- odd senior business executives that his presentation would last for around 45 minutes. Someone from the audience quipped, “ Please take your time. We are in no hurry.” The detailed presentation that followed — on how goods and services would be taxed under the GST regime — lasted alittle over an hour. Hardly anyone in the audience had moved from the seat during the programme. Clearly, corporate India — the hall in an upscale five- star hotel in central Delhi had representatives from the automobile and ancillary industries, FMCG, telecom, real estate, financial services, heavy machineries, exporters and importers, garment manufacturers, among others — is out...

The Land Acquisition Act is about 120 years old, and the proposed new one is mired in controversy, but it seems there are issues of interpretation yet to be settled by the Supreme Court. Last week, a two- judge bench delivered a split verdict on the question of interest on solatium in the case of land acquisitions, and the question has been referred to a larger bench. This means that the final word of the court on this two- decade old case will not come for years, going by the enormous backlog. In this case, Periyar and Pareekanni Rubbers Ltd vs state of Kerala, the company was aggrieved by the denial of interest payable on the component of solatium. It argued that the denial and its approval by Kerala High Court were illegal. One judge asked the government to pay interest but the other judge expressed his “ respectful disagreement” with that order, leading to the request to the Chief Justice to set up a larger bench. Meanwhile, the CJ’s court is currently struggling with hundreds of...